Midtown Dance Club Sells for $1.1 Million

The company bought the 22,554-square-foot retail building from Skefos, Kapos & Makris (a general partnership composed of James Jerry Skefos, Bob Kapos and Steve Makris) on Oct. 18.

No financing was associated with the transaction, although the Shelby County Register of Deeds shows two affidavits of heirship regarding the deaths of one of the selling partners, Kapos, signed by the other two partners, Skefos and Makris.

Built in 1958, the Class D building sits on 2.68 acres along the north side of Court Avenue, bounded by North Morrison Street to the west and Jefferson Avenue to the north.

The Shelby County Assessor of Property’s 2012 appraisal is $464,700.

Skefos, Kapos & Makris bought the property in 1982 for $245,000 from Rivermont Corp. of Florida.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Daily News staff

Baptist Reaches Agreement With Vanderbilt University

Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp. has a new academic affiliation agreement with Vanderbilt University Medical Center that will focus on oncology initiatives specifically between the Baptist Cancer Center and Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.

Cancer patients at Baptist will have access to clinical research trials and genetic diagnostic tools from Vanderbilt with the services available at Baptist hospitals in Memphis and other Baptist hospitals in the three-state Mid-South area.

Goals of the agreement include sharing of cancer tissue for research on genomic-based therapies, fellowship training programs for researchers in oncology subspecialties and Baptist’s participation in National Comprehensive Cancer Network activities.

In the last year, Baptist has added nearly 30 oncologists, a breast surgeon and two thoracic surgeons trained at Harvard Medical School.

– Bill Dries

City Responds in Photo Voter Identification Case

Attorneys for the city of Memphis said they would file a motion with the Tennessee Supreme Court by noon Monday, Oct. 29, in the state’s photo voter ID court case.

Tennessee state government Friday, Oct. 26, filed an appeal with the Tennessee Supreme Court of Thursday’s Tennessee Appeals Court ruling that orders the Shelby County Election Commission to allow voters to use photo library cards as a valid form of voter identification.

The appeal filed Friday afternoon also seeks a stay of the court order, which has effectively been put on hold by instructions state elections officials have given the local Election Commission. Local election officials have been told by Tennessee Elections Coordinator Mark Goins to continue giving citizens who present city-issued photo library cards during early voting a provisional ballot.

A written statement from Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr.’s office Monday morning said the city’s filing will ask the state Supreme Court “to deny the state’s application for appeal based on the very narrow issues the state sought to appeal and the already well established law on those issues.”

A note on the Tennessee Supreme Court’s website under the case heading reads: “In light of the upcoming election, the Court finds that consideration of the application for permission to appeal should be expedited.”

Meanwhile, through Saturday, Oct. 27, 151,855 early votes had been cast in Shelby County. Thursday is the last day for early voting in advance of the Nov. 6 election day.

The early vote total so far is 4,790 fewer early voters than at the same point in the early voting period for the presidential general election in November 2008.

Memphis Goodwill Opens Area's 23rd Donation Center

The location marks the 23rd donation center to operate in the greater Memphis area and the 36th in the Mid-South.

Dave Leutwyler, executive vice president for Memphis Goodwill, said donations to Memphis Goodwill are important because “they give people facing employment barriers a chance to get beyond those roadblocks and move onto the road to self-sufficiency.”

Operating hours will be Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Memphis Goodwill Inc. was founded in 1927 as a territory of the nationwide Goodwill Industries movement.

Today, the organization employs more than 600 people in Tennessee and Mississippi who face significant barriers to employment.

– Sarah Baker

UPS Expects to Deliver 527 Million Holiday Packages

UPS expects to deliver 527 million packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, surpassing last year’s record high by 10 percent.

The world’s largest package delivery company estimates 28 million of those will be delivered on Thursday, Dec. 20 – projected to be the busiest day of the year. That’s nearly double what the Atlanta company moves on an average day.

The busiest day of the year has moved close to Christmas because more Americans are ordering gifts online and using expedited shipping.

Most packages will arrive within three days. Last-minute shoppers who ship packages by Friday, Dec. 21, can get their goods by Christmas Eve via next-day air.

To handle the big jump in package volume, UPS plans to hire 55,000 seasonal workers to sort, load and deliver packages, the same number it hired last year, but 10 percent higher than in 2010.

UPS’ Memphis-based rival FedEx expects to handle 280 million shipments between Thanksgiving and Christmas, up 13 percent from the same stretch last year.

On FedEx’s busiest day this year, projected to be Dec. 10, it forecasts 19 million packages will move through its network, up 10 percent from 2011.

FedEx’s busiest day is much earlier because its peak time shipments are comprised of fewer priority packages.

Overall holiday sales are projected to rise 4.1 percent, according to The National Retail Federation. That would be the smallest increase since 2009, but still higher than the 10-year average of 3.5 percent.